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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26453158">the windows blew out of this house</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beezleebub/pseuds/Beezleebub'>Beezleebub</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Justified</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Healing, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Suicide Attempt, love will find you and it will save you!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 06:47:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,149</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26453158</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beezleebub/pseuds/Beezleebub</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>where in Boyd and Raylan meet after twenty long years under wildly different circumstances.</p><p>(AU canon divergence - alternate pilot)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Boyd Crowder/Raylan Givens</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>60</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>suicidal ideation/suicide attempt &amp; substance abuse</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Boyd never wanted to become what his father wanted him to become. </p><p>Bo Crowder was a large man that cast a larger shadow. Bowman had always been too thick-skulled for Bo to put much stock into, but Boyd was clever and his daddy knew so. His daddy also knew that Boyd’s love, his loyalty, was something that could be manipulated, weaponized, an ability unique to Bo Crowder.</p><p>Boyd loved Harlan. </p><p>When he was younger, bright-eyed and optimistic with Raylan Givens in his passenger seat and a pile of John Steinbeck and George Higgins novels on the floorboards, Boyd had loved Harlan County something terrible. There had been few sights Boyd had ever loved more than Raylan Givens on a hot day’s baseball practice and the hills of Kentucky’s coal country. </p><p>Raylan Givens left a long while ago now and no matter how hard Boyd looks he can not spot what he used to find so captivating about these hollers.</p><p>His fingers flex on the narrow steering wheel. The wipers work overtime against the cacophonous rain. Early June rainstorms have been harsh this year. Boyd can’t recall a season this nasty since he’s been home from Kuwait. It sets his teeth on edge, makes his skin crawl.</p><p>It is late and Boyd has been driving for miles. His tunnel vision swims out of focus as the dotted lines fly past him. He jerks the wheel as the car swerves, overcorrects and startles as the tires skid on wet pavement. He takes a steadying breath. He knows, distantly, he must be nearing Lexington. The traffic grows heavier the further north he moves and the glare of the traffic lights hurts his eyes. </p><p>He keeps the radio turned down for the drive, Steve Earle’s voice just low enough to be recognised. His head is blessedly numb, his thoughts as if on pause. It’s such a unique experience for him that it leaves him feeling a little unsettled. It’s good though, it is exactly what he needs at this moment. He feels as though he is attached to himself only by a thin fishing line liable to snap.</p><p>He had pulled over at a gas station some miles back when he had reached London, feeling strung out and dismembered. He puts gas in the tank but doesn't bother to fill it. He wouldn’t need a full tank. In a fit of precipitous emotion, he opens the glove box and digs through it until he finds the small yellow legal pad. He grabs the ball point pen he had left clipped under the elastic band on the sun visor and begins to scrawl, the notepad against his thigh.</p><p>It isn’t a note. He is Boyd Crowder, a no one outside of Harlan County and no one of any good inside the county. He is a man with no one to leave a note to, no one who would care to read such a thing. So it’s not a note, just a declaration. A self-affirmation; words hastily scratched on sun bleached paper. Thoughts he needs to expel from himself in this worked up state or else they will continue on making no sense inside his head. He tears the pages out, folds them into uneven forths, and slips them into the pocket of his Levis.</p><p>There’s a Bible in his glove compartment. He doesn’t know when it was put there. </p><p>The I-75 takes him into Lexington from the east. It’s a four-way stop, a red traffic light and a truck tractor. He hears the blaring of horns before he feels the impact, a truck t-boning Boyd’s pickup. His Ford skids across the intersection and he hears horns and tires crying against asphalt. His head bounces off the steering wheel before the airbag deploys and his mouth fills with blood. </p><p>The world is deafeningly loud and then there is very little at all.</p><p>A wave of tranquility washes over Boyd. Silence rings in his ears and there is blood on his windshield, a crack spider webbing the glass. He looks at it, transfixed, as the breakage snakes like veins. He feels as if his senses are wrapped in styrofoam.</p><p>There is a light being shone in his eyes. There are blue and red lights being caught in the fractured glass of his windshield and the wet pavement.</p><p>Someone is speaking to him. The light moves lower and Boyd tracks it as best he can. He sees his leg trapped under the steering wheel and the caved in driver’s side door, metal bites into his thigh but he cannot feel it. “Can you tell me your name?” someone is asking him.</p><p>Boyd looks at the man, dressed in the muted grey of a State Trooper uniform. He looks familiar to Boyd, a man that has passed through Harlan to respond to a call that local PD won’t handle. </p><p>“Sir, can you hear me?” he asks again. He says something about EMTs. </p><p>Boyd hears him, but he cannot look away from his windshield. Traffic lights and emergency lights glisten across the shattered glass that litters the intersection. The truck that hit Boyd’s is yards away, virtually unharmed. Two other cars, a minivan and an El Camino are dented and missing swaths of paint. It's beautiful and gut wrenching. Boyd did this, created this show in the middle of the street; put the world on pause. He just hopes the world stays so muted for as long as it can. He likes it this way.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>His head pounds behind his eyes but it is distant and removed. As though the pain floats above him in a heavy rain cloud.</p><p>There is someone in scrubs that Boyd assumes is a doctor discussing something softly with a man in uniform near the door to the room. Boyd assumes from the wide brimmed hat that he is a Trooper. They both glance Boyd’s way and, upon seeing Boyd awake and watching them, the doctor shoo’s the man away. He tips his hat at the doctor and goes, shutting the door behind him.</p><p>“Mr. Crowder, how are you feeling?” she asks, glancing at the monitor beside his bed.</p><p>Boyd cannot rightly think of what to say. He wets his lips. “Alright. Considering.” The words are stunted and dripping with exhaustion. </p><p>The doctor nods and she gives him an understanding look. She gets him a cup of water and he takes slow sips.</p><p>She tells him about his concussion and the skull fracture and some other things he can only be so bothered with. She tells him his leg that had been pinned is essentially useless. “Those old Fords weren’t built with driver safety as a high priority, you know?” she says. “Maybe look into something newer the next time.”</p><p>“I’ll be sure to do that,” he says stiffly.</p><p>She hangs the clipboard on the foot on his bed and stuffs her hands in the pockets of her scrubs. “How are you feeling, Mr, Crowder? Any pain?”</p><p>He shakes his head.</p><p>“I’m gonna go find you some jello.” After he’s gotten him to drink more water and eat something she tells him, “there’s a man here who would like to speak with you. I think he has some questions for you, if you’re feeling up to it?”</p><p>Boyd assumes she means the State Trooper that was here earlier and he’s a little surprised that the man hasn’t left yet. Surely he has better things to do than wait on one man’s statement. “No reason in fighting the inevitable.”</p><p>She leaves and shortly after a man in a hat enters his room. Narrow boots move him quietly across the tiled floor.</p><p>“Boyd.”</p><p>“Raylan Givens,” he breathes his name like it is something to be honored. He spreads his arm, palms facing the ceiling. “God damn, would you take a look at you? Archangel Raylan, here at my deathbed to throw me into the pit himself.”</p><p>“You ain’t dying, Boyd.”</p><p>“No? That is a relief then. As I should hope my impending demise would inspire more emotion in me then I fear I am currently capable of producing.” He strings his words together too many at a time. He wets his lips. “They have me on strong drugs, Raylan. You wouldn’t even believe. What are you doing here?”</p><p>Releasing a sigh, Raylan pulls over the stiff looking padded folding chair that looks nearly as old as the both of them feel. He takes a heavy seat and removes his hat. Boyd watches Raylan unwaveringly as he pushes a hand through his hair.</p><p>He looks so good, Boyd thinks. If Boyd allows himself to forget his current situation, it’s almost like damn near twenty years hasn’t gone by since he has seen Raylan in the flesh. He’s aged so wonderfully, his hair just beginning to washout to a grey he wears so unfairly well, like he is only now reaching his prime.</p><p>“I saw you shot that mobster in Miami,” he says.</p><p>“You checking in on me?” Raylan asks, amused.</p><p>Boyd rolls his eyes. “We do have TVs down in Harlan, Raylan,” he says. When what he means is <em> yes, of course. Of course I did.  </em></p><p>Raylan smiles. “They transferred me to the Lexington office.”</p><p>“You being punished for killing a murderer? Seems to me unjust,” he says. “I do believe the Lord intended for you to do exactly what you’ve done, Raylan.”</p><p>Raylan spreads his hands in a clear <em> what can you do </em>gesture before saying, “You think I’m doing God’s work?”</p><p>“I believe you are on the correct side of things, Raylan. I think that’s good enough for Him.” Boyd toys with the thin blanket. “Well, now we’ve established what you are doing in Kentucky, can I ask what you’re doing in this hospital room in particular?”</p><p>“I was given your case file, Boyd,” he says with a sad smile. “I was informed this morning that Boyd Crowder, filled with Oxy and liquor, drove himself into traffic last night.”</p><p>Boyd swallows and runs a thumb across the tattoos that mar his knuckles.</p><p>“I know it's been a long time,” Raylan says, “but you never did approve of drugs. However, if Boyd Crowder really was attempting to take his life, I’d only expect him to make a real show of it.” </p><p>Raylan’s eyes drift to Boyd’s fingers where <em> S-K-I-N-H-E-A-D </em>is scrawled across each appendage. Boyd shifts just a hair, a version of squirming, and fights the urge to move his hands, hide them behind his back or under the blanket. </p><p>“You couldn’t go quietly, could you? Had to make a whole stink about it. Let the world know.” Raylan sighs, his shoulders slumping. “What’s going on Boyd?”</p><p>“You’ve been gone too long.”</p><p>Raylan looks sad and Boyd hates it very much.</p><p>“I haven’t been feeling like myself in some time, Raylan. I have been running daddy’s business, not the way he would like, mind you,” he says.</p><p>“Bo never had the foresight to scam those skinheads into doing his heavy lifting and dirty work. I met one of your friends,” Raylan explains. “Dewey Crowe.”</p><p>Boyd rolls his eyes. “Dewey Crowe ain’t no one’s friend, Raylan. Even dumber than he looks, if that is at all possible.”</p><p>“Oh I got that impression. Why do you keep him around?”</p><p>“Never mind why I keep him around, even the stupidest sheep in the flock produces wool,” he says. “And the kids that flock to that white supremacy shit will eat out of your hands if you say the right things with words outside their limited vocabularies.” Boyd shakes his head. “Anyway, Raylan, I suppose you could call this the conclusion of the last thirty-seven years in Harlan.”</p><p>Raylan reaches into the pocket of his denim jacket and holds up a slip of yellow lined paper between his forefinger and middle finger. “You left this.”</p><p>“It’s not a note, exactly,” Boyd says. “I ain’t that cliche. I wrote it for myself, not for anyone to read.”</p><p>Raylan nods but doesn’t put it away. He holds it between both his hands, lightly; delicate. “No one died. Three people are in the hospital.”</p><p>Boyd feels an avalanche of guilt, but it is distant like the pain he knows he should be feeling. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Raylan.” He had simply gotten in his truck and started driving. It had not been some complex Boyd Crowder scheme.</p><p>“I want to know what your intentions were, Boyd,” Raylan says. There is an ounce of frustration creeping into his tone and he is not so different these days that Boyd cannot tell he is only just keeping his temper. “I want to know if I need to arrest you or get you a fucking psychiatrist.”</p><p>Boyd scrubs a hand across his face. “My intentions were not to harm anyone in the process of taking my own life, or whatever narrative that foolish head of yours is fabricating. I was only…”</p><p>“What, Boyd?”</p><p>“I suppose I was simply placing my fate in God’s hands.” Forcing God’s hand was more like it. Either Boyd died or he didn’t, it was His decision to make. Boyd had relinquished his autonomy.</p><p>“Alright,” Raylan says. He sits with his palms pressed against his thighs. Boyd’s eyes, unable to meet Raylan’s, are fixated on the horseshoe that adorns his ring finger. He wonders if Raylan was married and what girl would agree to let such an unattractive piece of jewelry symbolize that union. Or maybe it is a placeholder worn to take up the empty space where a ring once sat. He doesn’t think asking now will be appropriate. </p><p>“Are you listening to me, Boyd?”</p><p>“I’m sorry, Raylan. I’m finding I’m having a difficult time concentrating. What were you saying, darlin’?” The endearment slips loose without his consent and he realizes they must have him more drugged up than he thought. Raylan has the wherewithal not to point it out.</p><p>“I was saying that you’ll likely be put on probation and have to pay a pretty substantial fine. It’ll depend on what the psychiatrist has to say, and then the judge.”</p><p>“The psychiatrist? I thought you were only joking about that,” he says softly.</p><p>“Sure,” he says mildly. “You drove your car into traffic. So whether you really were trying to kill yourself or not, it still looks pretty clearly like a case of suicide by vehicular crash. It’s standard to send a psychiatrist for an evaluation.” He doesn’t bother to mention that a psych eval is entirely wasted on someone who lies so effortlessly such as Boyd. “You’re lucky no one died. Kentucky doesn’t have a statute for vehicular manslaughter and you’d more than likely go away for ten years, and that’s on the light side.”</p><p>When Boyd says nothing, Raylan nods and swallows past the lump that’s formed in his throat. “It is good to see you, Boyd,” he admits in a gentle tone of voice.</p><p>Boyd drowsily lolls his head to look at Raylan, finally meeting the man’s smokey eyes, and he smiles a face splitting grin. “I’ve missed you something fierce, Raylan Givens.”</p><p>For the first time since he has landed in Kentucky, a real, god forbid, smile blossoms across Raylan’s face. It’s stupid, finally feeling okay and it’s in a hospital room with Boyd fucking Crowder. It’s all such a mess. </p><p>“You’ve no idea what it’s like, bein’ in Harlan without you.”</p><p>“Oh I don’t know,” Raylan says. “Was pretty weird for me too, at first. Being outside Harlan without <em> you.”</em></p><p>“You look like you’ve done alright. Look like a real lawman.” He grins at Raylan, all teeth.</p><p>Raylan, for his part, laughs. “Been away a long time.”</p><p>Boyd offers him a thin smile. “You can’t have missed much. Nothing ever really changes in Harlan.”</p><p>“You’ve changed,” Raylan says. “At least a little. The idea of taking over for Bo was your drive when we was younger.”</p><p>Boyd wet his lips. “Daddy’s been in prison a little while now, Raylan. Hunter Mosely is real proud of himself for that. I ain’t done a whole lot to further daddy’s business in the meantime.”</p><p>“More fun robbing banks?”</p><p>Boyd’s smile doesn’t waver. “I hear it is.”</p><p>“So you wanted to make a name outta your own rather than be another Bo Crowder.” Raylan surely could sympathize with such a sentiment. He had sought a similar stake in life. A fear of becoming his father was what pushed Raylan away and a fear of never living up to his daddy was what held Boyd in place.</p><p>“I’m real tired of it, Raylan,” Boyd admits quietly. “I put my fate into God’s hands because I was just <em> tired.</em> I don’t wanna be in Harlan no more, but there ain’t nowhere else for a man such as myself. I do believe no one else will have me other than God himself.”</p><p>“Boyd.”</p><p>“I am lost, Raylan.” His voice is hoarse, like he had been shouting. “I reckon I was hoping…”</p><p>“Boyd.” Raylan stops him with a hand placed on his. “You don’t have to tell me this.”</p><p>Boyd nods. He feels incomprehensibly young, sitting in a hospital bed with Raylan Givens at his bedside. He never wants to look away from the man. The man that has shown so bright in Boyd’s memories for years. His eyes feel wet but no tears fall.</p><p>“You’re staying in Kentucky then?” he asks, hopeful. He can’t take his eyes away from Raylan’s hand that still remains resting over Boyd’s.</p><p>“Here in Lexington,” he says. “Got in only the day before yesterday.”</p><p>“You’ll be here for some time?”</p><p>Raylan scratches at the thin layer of stubble coating his jaw. “Oh, probably. Sure seeming that way.”</p><p>Boyd has the feeling that the marshals wanted Raylan, Harlan boy that he is, in Kentucky to get to Boyd. He knows he and his boys have made quite the noise down in their hollers. He decides maybe things won’t be so bad with Raylan back in his atmosphere. He wonders, sometimes, how things might have been had Raylan stayed - had the two of them run Harlan together. They would have wound up like their daddies, sure, but better. They would have been stronger. Could have been like legends in their holler, had they chosen to become so, because they’d have had each other.</p><p>Boyd has always been a romantic though. </p><p>“I need to be going.” Raylan offers him a smile. “I’ll… I’ll let you know what charges are brought up.”</p><p>He nods.</p><p>Raylan gives Boyd’s hand a squeeze and stands. “I’ll see you soon, Boyd, alright?”</p><p>There’s a sinking feeling in Boyd’s chest as he watches Raylan turn his back to him. “Alright, Raylan.”</p><p>The hospital is very quiet without Raylan there to keep him distracted. His ribs ache and his leg feels like it's trying to secede from the rest of him. He can easily up his own dosage of painkillers, easy as pressing a button that rests only inches from his hand. He doesn’t want the painkillers though. He had more than his share during his little joyride with oxy. He never wanted to feel that way again, God forgive him.</p><p>He wants Raylan to come back. He never wants Raylan out of his sight now that he knows how close he is. Raylan Givens back in east Kentucky. Boyd used to think it would take nothing short of the end of days to get that boy back in his home state. He wonders if Raylan misses Miami, figures he must. Raylan Givens under the Florida sun is surely a sight to be seen. An eighth wonder of the new world. Boyd makes a promise to himself that he will get Raylan into swim trunks and a hideously ostentatious hawaiian shirt if it’s his final act on this earth.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i wrote a chunk of this nearly six months ago and have been hanging onto it. i didn’t think anyone would like this mess but decided to pull the plug and just throw it out there.</p><p>please let me know your thoughts and thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Raylan asks Boyd if he needs an attorney and he declines, tells him he has a guy. Only requires a phone to make the call. He's on his daddy's payroll so he will do him right. He has the money to pay whatever fines he needs to. No one that was injured in the crash sues, so Boyd pays whatever he has to to their respective insurance. Being intoxicated on a cocktail of oxycontin and top-shelf whiskey that Johnny's gonna be real pissy about later, Boyd has complicated his mess further.</p><p>The case moves quickly, Judge Reardon eager to move it through. Raylan says the man is… eccentric. He pays a fine, but it is the psychiatrist that keeps him out of jail, according to Raylan. Boyd sees Raylan speaking with Judge Reardon afterwards in low tones and Boyd knows that boy owes some favors. He wonders what Raylan said or promised to convince a man not so affectionately known as “the Hammer” to go light on a career criminal.</p><p>Raylan’s face contorts into a look Boyd knows well, an expression of concealed anger and annoyance. A pretty woman in a dress that Boyd knows as the court reporter offers Raylan a tight lipped smile as she gathers her things up. Raylan rolls his eyes and as he turns Boyd catches his eye. His hands fall from his hips and then, in what feels like a blink for Boyd, he is right in front of him. </p><p>“Boyd?” </p><p>Raylan looks strange, all dressed up properly in a suit, but the hat does something funny to Boyd that brings it full circle again and it is just simply <em> Raylan. </em>Boyd, on the other hand, knows he paints a sorry picture, leg bound in a blue cast that keeps his knee from bending. He’s got gauze taped to his forehead from the gash. His face is bruised, lip busted good. His arms shake a little from the grip he keeps on the crutch.</p><p>“Would it be erroneous of me to presume you had a guiding hand in my fate this afternoon?”</p><p>“Not a guiding hand as such.”</p><p>“What did you have to say to that man?” he asks. “You don’t strike as the sort of lawman to exchange favors for friends. If you can describe our capricious relationship as friendly, seein’ as we are on opposing teams these days.”</p><p>“Who are you to say what sort of lawman I am? I ain’t even had to arrest you yet,” he says with a teasing smile. “And you ain’t playin’ for anyone's team, Boyd. You aren’t a team player.”</p><p>“Considering I am walking out of here a free man, I may be sorely mistaken in my assessment of your effectiveness as a marshal.”</p><p>Raylan bites back a grin. “Don’t you worry yourself, I ain’t in the habit of breaking laws for friends,” he says. “I’ll get you, and when I do it’ll be something that’ll put you away for a long time.”</p><p>“So we are friends then?”</p><p>Raylan shrugs. “Don’t see why not? Ain’t no laws against it. You and I weren’t ever any good at not getting along anyhow.”</p><p>“Like a house on fire.” He adjusts his grip on his crutches and smiles to himself. “You just told me you were gonna lock me away for the rest of my days. This is a very strange friendship we are embarking upon indeed.”</p><p>“Yeah, well, I don’t have anything on you yet.”</p><p>“Raylan-”</p><p>Apropos of nothing, Raylan asks, “Where are you staying?”</p><p>The inquiry startles a laugh from Boyd. “Excuse me?”</p><p>“You didn’t go back to Harlan did you?”</p><p>“And if I did?” He sounds only a little defensive to his own ears.</p><p>“It would be goddam stupid.”</p><p>“Raylan…” He trails off with a shake of his head. Softly, he admits, “I don’t rightly know what to say to you. I live in Harlan, where else would I be staying?”</p><p>“Tell me you’ve not gone back to your militia and that damn church.” Raylan sounds so beseeching as though he were about to supplicate himself to Boyd, drop to his knees and ask him so prettily. </p><p>Boyd doesn’t think he’s ever heard Raylan beg a day in his life. Not even when Boyd turned him away all those years ago. </p><p>He releases a heavy sigh but he really is not interested in asking how much Raylan knows of his recent ventures. He does wonder when Raylan drove down to Harlan and started asking questions; wonders who he had asked. By his guess, no one in Harlan knows where the hell Boyd is and that is just fine by him. </p><p>People are beginning to fill the halls and Boyd realizes it must be nearing five. It will be nearly eight o’clock before Boyd reaches Harlan if he does bother going back. He needs to grab his things from the hotel, what little things he has with him.</p><p>“I’ll see you, Raylan.”</p><p>“Boyd, wait,” Raylan stops him leaving, his tone as gentle as the hand on his arm. “Don’t go back to Harlan.”</p><p>“Why are you so invested in where I go?”</p><p>“Just- because we’re friends, Boyd. Ain’t we?” he asks. His Appalachian drawl grows more pronounced the longer he speaks with Boyd and he wonders if the man is aware of it. Knowing Raylan, he likely is and probably hates it. “Look, Boyd, you know you don’t belong in Harlan no more.”</p><p>It’s not as though Boyd is unaware of that. He has not up and forgotten the chaos he has caused in a desperate bid to get free of Harlan County. Boyd has nowhere else to go, has no one to go to. His mama’s family lives down south somewhere but Boyd has never met them. He has no surviving family in Harlan that give a damn about him. No friends. And now here is Raylan Givens placed before him and pleading. </p><p>“Where would you have me go, Raylan?”</p><p>“Go with me,” he says with no hesitation.</p><p>It’s like there is a damn echo ringing through Boyd’s skull from nineteen years ago. He flexes his fingers over the padded grip of his crutch. “I don’t know, Raylan. A career criminal moving in with a US Marshal. What would your coworkers think?”</p><p>Raylan grins and Boyd is too foolish not to return it.</p><p>With all the years between them, all the ways they have changed, exchanging words with Raylan comes just as easy to Boyd as it ever has. He has missed Raylan and he is not shy about admitting as much.</p><p>“I ain’t worried about what they’ll think, so don’t you worry yourself.”</p><p>He truly does not know what to say to Raylan. He thinks that psychologist might have been right on the money. Hell, maybe he was worse off than the shrink thought, because he definitely feels like his brain is leaking out of his ears. It’s not like the feeling the oxy or hospital painkillers left him with, that head hollowed out and re-filled with cotton sort of feeling. No, he feels he- well, god damnit, he feels like Boyd Crowder. Or a version of himself that hasn’t existed in two decades anyway. He blames it on Raylan. Wholly and entirely. He wonders what version of Boyd Crowder it is that Raylan has carried with him in his head for all these years. Maybe that’s who he feels like, this childhood memory of who he was through Raylan’s eyes.</p><p>He thinks he would like to be that man.</p><p>It’s a fucking day dream.</p><p>“I can’t, Raylan,” he says.</p><p>Boyd feels divorced from the Boyd Crowder of last year, but he is still that same man, whether he wants to be or not. Boyd does not believe in metamorphosis. He is a boy from the holler and he has got coal dust running thick in his blood. Maybe Raylan isn’t so different, Boyd is willing to bet he isn’t. Same holler, same filthy coal staining his palms. His family tree ain’t all wood rot though, that’s the difference between them. He’s got bad apples, sure, like his daddy, but he’s got so much greenery too.</p><p>Raylan nods, accepting, and Boyd’s heart breaks a little for it. He had half expected Raylan to keep pushing - to insist.</p><p>“Alright, Boyd,” Raylan says finally. “I’ll see you around then. Look after yourself?”</p><p>“Alright, Raylan.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Returning to Lexington, Raylan never expected a warm homecoming. He hadn’t planned on sauntering down into Harlan and making a little show of it. He wasn’t planning on visiting Harlan until he absolutely had to, and he knew that he would have to. Harlan is an oasis for criminals and all sorts, he knew he would wind up there one way or another. </p><p>He wasn’t expecting to see Boyd Crowder’s face in a case file shoved under his nose by Art Mullen. Raylan, god damnit, fool that he is, lied to Art with a cool “we dug coal together, that’s all.” He is fine with that lie, it wasn’t one entirely, and Art wouldn’t like to hear more than that anyway.</p><p>Raylan drove down to Harlan his second day working out of Lexington, asking after Boyd Crowder. He was directed to Boyd’s militia, his horrible church out in the hills. No communication with Boyd in two decades and the first he is reintroduced to him it’s through the hollowed out remains of God’s house with hate decorating it’s walls and his name practically echoing through the space like a wretched thing.</p><p>It was infuriating.</p><p>And then Art tells him about the damn traffic accident.</p><p>Raylan has been in Lexington all of three and a half weeks now, long enough to wish he had never come back at all and to wish he had come back sooner. Just a little bit sooner for Boyd Crowder’s sake.</p><p>It is three days after Boyd’s closed trial before Judge Reardon when Art calls him into his office. “You spoken with Boyd Crowder recently?” he asks.</p><p>Raylan rolls his eyes. “Oh, sure, every night we gossip over the phone.”</p><p>Art gives the deputy a clear <em> don’t be smart with me </em>glare. “You know Bowman, Boyd’s brother?”</p><p>“He was star running back in high school. Ran into him a few times at parties, but I couldn’t say I knew the guy.”</p><p>“You remember the girl he married, Ava?”</p><p>Raylan raises his brows. “Ava Randolph? She lived down the street. She married to Bowman?”</p><p>“Was,” Art says. “She ended the union yesterday with a thirty-ought-six, plugged him through the heart. Said she got tired of him getting drunk and beating on her. She was arraigned this morning,” he says. “Released on her own recognizance. Seems the prosecutor is aware of what a known a-hole Bowman was and would rather plead it out than go to trial. I was thinking she might have something on Boyd.”</p><p>Raylan blows out a heavy breath, placing his hands on his hips. He thinks Boyd really lucked out by being the black sheep of that cursed family of his.</p><p>“How would you feel about drivin’ down there and having a word with her?”</p><p>Raylan sighs. “Do I have to?”</p><p>Art gives him an overly patient look. “I wasn’t really asking.”</p><p>“Yeah, I know.” Raylan removes his hat and pushes a hand through his hair. “Alright. I’ll have a talk with her, see what she has to say.”</p><p>Art nods. “You do that.”</p><p>
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</p><p>Boyd is beginning to think telling a group of hot headed Nazi’s that he’s “out” might be only his second worst idea of the day. He thinks this as he stands in Ava Crowder’s kitchen, a glass of bourbon in his hands and his back pressed firmly against the door frame leading into the dining room. His brother’s blood is still soaking through the carpet and into the floorboards, looking like someone dropped a pail of paint. He wants to offer to help scrub it out, wants to apologize to her a hundred times over for the behavior of his brother and himself. As it stands, it takes substantial effort to tear his eyes away from the horrid stain.</p><p>“Ava?”</p><p>The woman pauses in her viscous scrubbing at her dishes to level him a wicked glare. Her face screws up in a look of quick anger and Boyd resolves to be gentle with her, reminding himself that she is likely concussed from Bowman knocking her around. </p><p>“If you would allow me, I could do that for you.” He gestures towards the sink.</p><p>“You ain’t doin’ much of anything like that, Boyd. You look like you’re gonna pass out.” Her expression softens. She dries her hands and moves to the freezer. She rummages till she finds a bag of frozen carrots. She sets it down with a solid <em> thunk </em> on the kitchen table. “Before your eye swells shut. Sit.”</p><p>Boyd does as he is told, taking a seat at one of the wicker chairs at the table after a short hobbling over. A heavy sigh escapes him as he sits, his joints popping and his pulse pounding through his braced leg. He props his crutch against the table and polishes off the rest of his whiskey. The cold of the frozen vegetables feels good against the bruised, hot flesh of his face and his eyes fall shut with relief.</p><p>“What’d you do to earn all that anyhow?” she asks.</p><p>“Oh, some was self-inflicted,” he says. “The rest was fairly earned. Some advice, dear Ava, don’t throw stones inside your own glass house.”</p><p>“I don’t even know what you mean by that, Boyd.” She looks at him and after a full four seconds have ticked by she says, “you quit out on those Hitler’s Youth boys didn’t you? Are you in danger?”</p><p>He drops the frozen veggies and rests both his elbows on the table, the only thing keeping him upright. “I could not say if I am in any more trouble than usual,” he says. He can feel the handgun resting in his waistband. “I will surely not be going anywhere unarmed in the near future.” He drums his fingers against the table. He should get out of Harlan and fast, but he needs a plan. He needs somewhere to go.</p><p>He thinks of Raylan’s offer at the courthouse, the olive branch he was practically wacking Boyd over the head with.</p><p>Boyd is such a prideful goddamn fool.</p><p>Ava dries the last couple of dishes before she turns to face him, leaning against the sink. Her face shows sympathy that Boyd does not deserve. “Why’d they only knock you around? Seems, to my understanding of things, they ought to’ve killed ya.”</p><p>“Oh they will surely try,” he says. “Most of my boys aren’t go-getters. They’ll feel slighted, surely, but they won’t do much more than bark. It’s the boys outta Buchanan that are biters.” He leans back till the base of his skull rests against the chair. Boyd knows those skinhead boys out of Virginia will be out for blood. They’ll call him a “race traitor” and want to make a real show of it; make an example. It’s beautiful, in its own way, a real show of how quickly a shepherd can lose control of his flock.</p><p>There’s a knock on Ava’s screen door that startles the two of them out of the strangely comfortable companionship they were engaging in. Boyd takes the handgun from his waistband and gives Ava a nod to go ahead. She eyes the shot gun propped against the kitchen wall but ultimately she leaves it.</p><p>Boyd hobbles behind her but stays out of sight. He is surprised at Ava’s willingness to trust him to have her back, but he is grateful for it as well. He listens as she opens the door and in a breathless voice says: “Oh my God -- <em> Raylan.” </em></p><p>Boyd could laugh.</p><p>“You remember me, huh?”</p><p>“I never forgot you,” she says sweetly.</p><p>Boyd steps into the foyer, putting himself in Raylan’s line of sight. Ava has pressed herself real close to Raylan, a hand gripping his arm like the boy might slip away from her like smoke. Boyd wonders how she sees Raylan, if he is some beautiful thing bursting with sunlight in her eyes. He thinks he must be; wonders how anyone could see Raylan any other way.</p><p>“Boyd.” Raylan’s face screws up in surprise. Whether it's seeing Boyd in Harlan or seeing him at Ava’s house, he couldn’t rightly say.</p><p>“Hello, Raylan.” He thumbs the safety notch of his gun and slips it back into his waistband.</p><p>Raylan extracts himself from Ava and clasps Boyd’s hand into his and then they’re embracing. The sudden manhandling throws off Boyd’s balance and he steadies himself with a hand against Raylan’s middle, precariously allowing his good leg to hold his body weight. </p><p>“How’s your leg?” he asks, holding Boyd at arms length.</p><p>“It’s just fine, Raylan.”</p><p>“And your head?” He gestures to the short scar across Boyd’s scalp.</p><p>“I’ve had this fucking headache for days. Doesn’t seem to want to go away no matter how much I drink.”</p><p>Raylan grins. His eyes bounce around Boyd’s face, absorbing every new bruise and scrape.</p><p>“Why don’t you come in,” Ava suggests, guiding Raylan into the house by the arm.</p><p>Raylan nods and follows her inside. Boyd stays back and makes sure to lock the screen door behind them.</p><p>Ava, hair still wet from her shower and dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, leads Raylan into the kitchen. She has a soft smile and a loose attitude with Raylan, a one-eighty from the way she treated Boyd. She has always been short with Boyd but he is the first to admit it has been well deserved.</p><p>“I heard you got married,” she says, “are you still?”</p><p>The question garners Boyd’s attention and he tries not to make his curiosity too obvious.</p><p>“Turned out to be a mistake.”</p><p>“You wanna talk about mistakes.” Ava starts to go on about Bowman and Boyd can’t bear to listen. “... My fault I miscarried after he beat me with his belt,” Ava is saying. “My fault he didn’t have a son to take hunting with him and his creepy brother.” She pauses and her eyes dart towards Boyd very briefly. “Last time he hit me it was because I called Boyd creepy.”</p><p>Boyd feels sick with shame.</p><p>“He kept after me with his belt till I fell and hit my head on the stove. I got up from that floor knowing he would never hit me again.” Filled with nervous energy, she offers Raylan some Jim Beam. She pours the three of them a glass. “You want anything in yours? I’ve got Coke, RC, Dr Pepper…”</p><p>“Just ice, if you have some.” Raylan looks at Boyd.</p><p>Ava fills Raylan’s glass with ice, cuts Boyd’s with Coke, and takes her own straight. She leads Raylan into her living room, sets their glasses down on the coffee table, and throws herself down on the sofa, pulling Raylan with her. “You and Boyd already seen eachother then, since you been back?”</p><p>Raylan nods. “Yes, we had… a run in, in Lexington. Seen eachother a few times now.”</p><p>“That’s where you’ve been?” she asks Boyd. “Bowman said he took off, didn’t say where. Hadn’t no one seen him in a week and I didn’t think to ask when he showed up here lookin’ like hell.”</p><p>Boyd takes a seat in the armchair, his leg stretched out in front of him. His face still aches. He knows he’s going to bruise nice and fast all over again.</p><p>“You looking to arrest him?” Boyd may be imagining the concern in her voice.</p><p>Raylan smiles at Boyd. “Oh, sure. We only have to catch him in the act. Robbing a bank, blowing up a church… Making an attempt on your life.”</p><p>“Mine?”</p><p>“Well, he could come after you, being Bowman’s brother.”</p><p>Boyd snorts, his gaze cool. “I wouldn’t be too worried about that, Raylan.”</p><p>“I ain’t really,” he admits. “Where’d you get that black eye anyhow?” he asks. </p><p>Boyd takes a sip of his drink and wets his lips. “My men were not what you would call overjoyed by my resignation.” He smiles bitterly.</p><p>“You go and piss off a load of hillbilly Hitler worshipers and then come to Ava’s home? You get knocked in the head harder than you let on, boy?”</p><p>Boyd rolls his eyes. “Those boys ain’t gonna come after me, Raylan. You met Dewey Crowe, you really gonna tell me you are worried about the likes of him or Devil? It’s my daddy’s men that we ought to be on the lookout for. That is why I am here.”</p><p>“Well I was getting to that, Boyd.”</p><p>“Oh well I would hate to interrupt your itinerary, Raylan,” he says. “Please, say your piece.” He waves his hand as if granting Raylan permission and it makes Raylan smile.</p><p>“I’m meant to be making a case on you, Boyd Crowder.” Raylan’s ever present temper is leaking through his tone; clearly frustrated. “You rob a bank in McKinsley, blow the top of someone’s Honda, make a big show of it. Ain’t no one that doesn’t know it was you. Thing is, there isn’t an ounce of proof-”</p><p>“Then it looks like you have no case, Deputy Marshal Givens.” He spreads his arms, palms facing the heavens.</p><p>Raylan holds up a hand. “No proof other than one of your boys getting positively identified in a line-up.”</p><p>“One of mine?”</p><p>“Of course he won’t say as much but he’s got all the matching tramp stamps. Too afraid to rat on you, afraid of what you’d do to him in retribution.”</p><p>Boyd swallows and he feels ill. They are both leaning towards one another, elbows on their knees. Boyd’s hand is clenched on his leg tight, fingers bunching the fabric over the brace. </p><p>“You said to me, not two weeks ago now,” Raylan goes on, his voice turning low and gentle, “that you wanted out of Harlan. That you were tired of all this bullshit. You said you wanted out. Were you playing me, Boyd?”</p><p>Boyd shakes his head.</p><p>“Why are you still here then?”</p><p>“Ava needs-”</p><p>“Ava has the Marshal services to keep her safe from Bo,” he says patiently, like a promise. “You should have left long before any of this mess with Bowman anyhow.”</p><p>Boyd looks away from Raylan, his eyes bouncing around the home. He feels shame rise hot in his cheeks. “I didn’t lie to you, Raylan.”</p><p>Raylan sighs. Ava has stepped out of the room, retreated to the kitchen with her and Raylan’s empty glasses to give them a moment. Boyd feels bad for not noticing she had gone.</p><p>“You were ready to die, Boyd. No more than three god damn weeks ago.” Raylan looks wrecked, ready to break down and plead for Boyd to see reason. “Please, Boyd. Please get out of this town. Just come with me to Lexington.” Raylan pushes the hair from Boyd’s forehead, causing it to stand up all wild. His hair was always longer when they were kids but Raylan likes it better this way. His palm cups Boyd’s face, thumb caressing his jaw. “I don’t want to leave you behind again,” he says. </p><p>Boyd shuts his eyes and leans into Raylan’s touch.When he opens his eyes, Raylan’s face is a hair's breadth away from his, Boyd could easily lean forward and just-</p><p>“Are you boys staying for dinner?” Ava asks.</p><p>Boyd blinks and tries to shake himself out of the trance he has fallen under. He hears Raylan tell her they’ll both stay.</p><p>“I don’t think Bo will send anyone here tonight,” Raylan says, standing and stretching his legs. </p><p>“I’ve got a meetin’ with a lawyer in the morning,” she says. “Maybe I’ll stay in the city, make a day of it. I can find something to entertain myself, surely. Big city like that. Been a while since I’ve spent some time outside Harlan, ya know.”</p><p>“In that case, it’ll be good for you. Take a breath of fresh air that don’t smell like cow shit.”</p><p>“I do believe Raylan is an expert on such things,” Boyd says, finding his voice. He clears his throat. “Harlan has a strange way of making you forget there’s things on the other side of them mountains. Raylan has been away a long time,” he says, meeting Raylan’s smokey gaze. “I believe he has gotten Harlan sufficiently out of his lungs.”</p><p>“If you say so, Boyd,” Ava says.</p><p>Now that he has Raylan’s attention once again, Boyd feels drunk off it. He doesn’t want to lose it. But good things never last. “I never did ask, Raylan. How was Miami?”</p><p>Raylan laughs, a beautiful sound that comes from low in his chest. “As advertised.”</p><p>“Cocaine and suntan lotion.”</p><p>“That’s about it, yah.” Raylan swipes a hand over his face, his expression giving hint to a swirling mess of emotions that must be eating up his poor head. He always was too damn emotive; had a shit poker face. Boyd wonders how on earth he went toe to toe with criminals and fugitives without giving away his hand. “It was sunny and hot.”</p><p>“I’ll go with you,” Boyd ejects softly. The words tumble out of his mouth clumsily like they cannot wait to get free; like they taste rotten and he cannot bear to hold them in any longer. “If you haven’t retracted that particular olive branch, that is.”</p><p>“No.” Raylan shakes his head. “No, of course not.” A smile blossoms on his face and Boyd thinks he would do anything at all to get that smile to stay right where it is. “We can get your things from your place tonight, after dinner.”</p><p>Boyd nods along. “Okay, Raylan.” He feels some small ounce of relief, of hope, but it is reluctant.</p><p>
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</p><p>The sun has sunk low below the Cumberland Mountains, illuminating the sky in streaks of pink and blue, when they roll to a stop outside Boyd’s sorry excuse of a cabin.</p><p>“You remember this place, Raylan?”</p><p>“Course I do.”</p><p>It is one of Bo’s many hunting cabins spread across eastern Kentucky - not his nicest but far from the worst. Boyd used to take Raylan out here as kids and they would spend the weekend drinking and catching fish in the creek that backs right up to the cabin. The place was left empty for years, left to fall to the wayside till Boyd had decided to make it his.</p><p>“Wasn’t the best conditions when I moved in last year,” Boyd says by way of explanation of the blue tarp he has duct taped to the front window. The wind is picking up and making the thing billow; noisy. “Chased the raccoons out that’d been squating here with a sawed off.” The place really isn't so much worse than the house Boyd grew up in. Without his mama it left him and Bowman with their daddy who didn’t put much stock into a clean home.</p><p>Raylan laughs and follows Boyd inside. Boyd has to put a key in four different locks to get them inside. Raylan blessedly doesn’t comment on Boyd’s paranoia. The space is dark and Raylan startles Boyd when he flicks the light on, leaving the other man blinking rapidly till his eyes adjust.</p><p>“God damn, Boyd.”</p><p>Boyd looks over his shoulder and follows Raylan’s gaze to the large, ugly flag tacked to the wall above the sofa - horrid and demanding attention. He elects to look away before his thoughts get away from him.</p><p>“I saw the church, you know,” Raylan admits and Boyd really wishes he would only shut up. “Just, different seeing it all with you in the room.</p><p>The house is littered with hate and enough firearms to call an arsenal. There’s an unloaded rocket launcher on the coffee table, as well as empty beer cans, packs of cigarettes, a couple large and smaller knives. A few of the boys were up here several nights ago, curious when Boyd rolled back into town with a busted leg, hobbling around on crutches like an invalid. They’d loitered around, drinking and smoking and handling weapons. Shooting the shit. Boyd hadn’t told them to leave. The role he had been playing had been easy to fall back on; easier than being alone with just his crumbling self. He hasn’t managed to find the time to clean up.</p><p>“It’s not anything worth getting worked up over, Raylan,” Boyd says. He’s leaning his crutch up against his uncovered mattress in order to grab an old gym bag from the closet. He starts pulling shirts to fill it with. “Surely can’t be as bad as having this on me all the goddamn time.” He pulls the sleeve of his t-shirt up and smacks the tattoo with an open palm. </p><p>Raylan looks irritated but he quits bitching about it at least. </p><p>Boyd piles some jeans into his bag, grabs a belt and some socks too. “You should count yourself lucky I was preoccupied when you went galavanting around my church, Raylan.”</p><p>“On what account?” Raylan says, his hands in his pockets as he looks around the space.</p><p>“You’d have very likely been on the receiving end of some speech of mine about the Jews,” he says with a small, self-deprecating smile.</p><p>“You ever met any Jews, Boyd?”</p><p>Boyd shrugs. “Suppose I could have.”</p><p>“I know you’re smarter than all this. Only people you hate are dumbasses, you don’t give a good goddamn who they are beyond that.”</p><p>Boyd snorts a laugh. “Perhaps you’re right. I’d’ve tried convincin’ you otherwise though.” He zips his bag and looks Raylan in the eyes. “I would have done a damn fine job of convincing you.”</p><p>Raylan nods, looks sad. “I don’t doubt it.” Then he chuckles, maybe because he don’t know what the hell else to do. </p><p>“Don’t see how it matters. I’ve done what I’ve done, and now I’m done with it. Let’s get out of this county.”</p><p>He grabs his toiletries and, when Raylan has his back turned - busy rifling through Boyd’s small bookshelf - stuffs a Ruger and extra clips in his duffle bag. </p><p>“All good?”</p><p>He nods.</p><p>“Right. Shall we?” He takes Boyd’s bag from him and then holds the door so Boyd can get through easy with his crutch and, like a damn cowboy casanova, tips his hat to him.</p><p>He tosses Boyd’s things in the trunk.</p><p>“Raylan.” Boyd stops him before he gets back in the car. His voice wavers and Boyd hates it.</p><p>“What’s it?” He looks at Boyd so open and questioning. He is so beautiful. Boyd very nearly cannot stand it - cannot believe he is here with him after so much time. </p><p>“It’s alright? Me staying in your home, I mean,” he says. “You won’t be in any sort of trouble?”</p><p>“I already told you not to worry about any of that. Isn’t much of a home anyhow. I’ve only been in Kentucky a couple weeks, haven’t found a place yet.”</p><p>Boyd nods. He does not know when he got so damn self-conscious about this sort of shit. The old Boyd did not care one bit what anybody had to say about his life. It had been horrible and bloody but it was his fucking life and he had been fine with that. </p><p>He thinks Raylan has always had an unfair hold over him.</p><p>Raylan gestures towards his Lincoln. “C’mon now. It’s gettin’ dark and I’d like to be home before midnight.”</p><p>Telling himself it’s less easy of a decision than it truly is, Boyd follows Raylan to the ends of the earth.</p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Boyd is not court ordered to see a psychologist. Kentucky is not so progressive as to put such importance on mental health, only backwards enough to allow men like Boyd Crowder off with a fine. It was a broken system but Raylan was not about to take it upon himself to correct it. </p><p>Raylan suggests to Boyd the idea of looking for a shrink as they talk about this and that on the ride, but Boyd blows him off with a sharp: “I think I am acquainted with myself well enough without digging into the recesses of my repressed traumas, Raylan. I get to know myself any better and I very well may blow my head off.” </p><p>So Raylan drops the topic of conversation all together. </p><p>It is late by the time they arrive in Lexington, the clock on the dash just flashing midnight as Raylan pushes the key into the lock of his motel room.</p><p>Both of Boyd’s eyebrows raise. “And you tried passing judgement on my living conditions. At the very least I decorated.”</p><p>“Hanging a racist flag over a window and calling it a curtain isn’t decorating, Boyd.”</p><p>“I never claimed to be an interior designer,” he mutters. </p><p>Standing in Raylan’s space, the little world he has carved away for himself, leaves Boyd feeling dysphoric and defunct. He has never laid his head anywhere other than Harlan, save for his years in the Army and later Little Sandy. Boyd wishes things were the same as they were when they were kids.</p><p>Mostly, he just wants to get some rest.</p><p>He brushes a hand across his face, musing his already displaced hair. His eyes are wild and he thinks Raylan can see right through him when he looks at him.</p><p>“Where should I…?” Looking at Raylan, he wonders if he looks as pathetic to him as he feels he may. </p><p>Very gently, Raylan takes the crutch from Boyd’s grip. He feels he will topple right over without it, but he never finds out. Instead Raylan takes his weight, guiding Boyd to the side of the bed and helping him sit. </p><p>Helpless to fight him if he tried or wished to, Boyd nods and begins to unbutton his shirt. It’s too much trouble and he tugs it over his head instead. He leaves his undershirt on and shimmies out of his boots. His jeans are another matter and at Raylan’s stilled hands Boyd nods for him to go ahead. Gently, with care that Boyd would hesitate to label as <em> loving, </em>Raylan undoes the buckles and velcro of the leg brace. They leave all his clothes to pile up on the carpeted floor, they can worry about the mess in the morning. Raylan’s fingers dance over the violent raised scarring across Boyd’s thigh and knee left by the wreckage of his car and the surgery. His touch ghosts over Boyd’s skin causing him to break out in goosebumps. He sets Boyd’s brace on the dresser across the room and Boyd pulls the blankets down and climbs under them, feeling warm for the first time that day despite the time of year. </p><p>Not long after that, after listening to Raylan pitter around and flick the bathroom light on, run the tap, and then off again, Raylan follows Boyd’s lead. He is close enough for Boyd to feel the man’s heat, trapped under the blankets, warming the both of them. Boyd lays on his side and looks at him.</p><p>Soft enough it very nearly gets swept away with the sounds of the street traffic, Boyd says, “Thank you, Raylan.”</p><p>With his eyes shut Raylan smiles and it’s smothered in the blankets. “I’m glad you’re here.”</p><p>Something warm blossoms in Boyd’s chest and he wants, he wants so desperately, for Raylan to mean it. He watches Raylan as he drifts to sleep. </p><p>
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</p><p>The sunlight pouring in through a small gap in the curtains is what wakes Boyd, that and the unfamiliar white noise of nearby traffic, pulling him slowly back into reality. It is a peaceful feeling, which he is ultimately unacquainted with - being swathed in sunshine and heavy blankets. The room is pleasantly cool. Autumn came on them suddenly, cold fronts bathing east Kentucky in a refreshing chill that Boyd feels all the way down to his toes. </p><p>Stretching, he rolls over and props himself up on his elbows. He is set on finding the painkillers in his bag when he realizes he is alone in the room. The space beside him has grown cold and did so some time ago by his estimate. The room is empty and with nowhere for someone of Raylan’s size to hide other than the bathroom, but its door is open and the light is off.</p><p>“Raylan?” he calls.</p><p>As he suspects there will be, there is no reply.</p><p>The loneliness creeps up on Boyd like the cold. </p><p>It’s childish.</p><p>Mindful of his leg, Boyd leverages himself out of bed. He grits his teeth through the pain. It is sharp and demanding as it often is in the mornings when the painkillers have worn off. Thin fingers grapple desperately at his leg as though it will do him any favors at all. </p><p>Cursing to himself, he throws his weight onto his good leg and balances himself across the room towards his bag. He rummages through his things till his shaking hands find the prescription painkillers. They are not as heavy duty as the doctor would have preferred to write him up for, but Boyd is fine with that. His short foray with Oxy led to a flirtation with self-inflicted expiration and he is not keen on a repeat of that particular adventure. </p><p>It still tickles in the back of his mind, that desire to pull the trigger, but he thinks it would surely upset Raylan were he to off himself. For some ill-begot reason, Raylan appears to give a damn about Boyd’s sorry self. For a reason that is less of a mystery to Boyd, he cares for Raylan’s feelings.</p><p>He feels an overwhelming desire to make Raylan happy. It is a short term goal, but if Boyd must set himself these short term and simplistic milestones in order to keep himself treading water, then so be it. </p><p>Boyd is sitting on the ground, a small orange bottle of pills in his hand after swallowing two pills dry, when the door opens. He looks up at Raylan who stands in the door frame with two steaming cups in hand. Raylan looks back at him, his lips pursed and his brows forming a confused frown.</p><p>“I thought you might want coffee.” Raylan sets them down on the table. “Are you alright?” he asks of Boyd. </p><p>Boyd tosses the bottle of pills back into his duffle. “I’m not entirely certain I can get back up,” he says. “Otherwise, I’m alright.” He shrugs his shoulders feebly, feeling like an invalid. His leg still hurts and he feels entirely humiliated, but aside from that, he is happy that Raylan is back. It pushes the darkness out from the forefront of his thoughts.</p><p>“C’mon.” Raylan offers Boyd a hand. They count, “one, two, three,” and then he is tugging Boyd to his feet again. Gingerly and with more care than Boyd feels he is deserving, he sets Boyd down on the bed. “You need help with your jeans?” he asks.</p><p>“Just some assistance getting to the bathroom, thank you,” he says. “I’d like to shower.”</p><p>“Well, you’re on your own with <em> that,” </em> Raylan says it like he only means it so long as Boyd <em> can </em>manage it. </p><p>“I’ll get by.” Boyd ducks his head and avoids Raylan’s eyes as the lawman takes Boyd by the arm and helps him to the bathroom. Boyd showers quickly, having trouble balancing on the slick shower floor. When he exits the shower, it is to find a set of clean clothes folded neatly on the bathroom sink. He does have more trouble with his jeans than he would care to admit, but he gets on alright. It takes some maneuvering. He hits his elbow against the counter, cursing a storm, and he knocks Raylan’s toiletry bag off the counter. </p><p>There's a light knock on the door and Raylan calls, "You alright in there?”</p><p>“Fine!” he snaps.</p><p>He feels a swell of accomplishment once he’s finally got his jeans buttoned and his shirt over his head. He towel dries his hair, causing it to spike up in erratic tufts. Frowning at his reflection, he rubs at the cut that has scared across his scalp. His gaze drifts to his bruised eye but there’s nothing to be done about it. He hobbles out of the bathroom. </p><p>“Do…” With a frown he tugs at his ratty t-shirt. “Could I borrow a shirt?”</p><p>Unsure what Boyd needs, Raylan moves to his closet. “I don’t have much but you’re welcome to whatever strikes your eye.”</p><p>Anything will do, Boyd decides. Anything other than these clothes that make him feel like a man he thinks he would rather not be any longer. He killed that Boyd Crowder on the I-75 in a five car pile-up.</p><p>He selects a blue flannel and returns to the bathroom. “You’ll be needing a new toothbrush,” Boyd tells him. “Yours took an unfortunate tumble onto the not so sanitary floor.”</p><p>Raylan gives a short, surprised laugh. “No worries. I’ve got an extra.”</p><p>In the bathroom, Boyd strips out of his tee and replaces it with Raylan’s shirt. He buttons it up to his neck and tucks it into his jeans. He thinks that looks much better. There’s a bit of extra room in the shoulders but he doesn’t mind so much. It smells like Raylan.</p><p>After he is dressed, Boyd allows Raylan to guide him by the arm across the motel room, depositing him in the chair at Raylan’s sad little table. He smiles as Raylan pushes the cooling coffee in front of him. He accepts it gratefully and takes a large sip. It’s dark with a little cream, no sugar. He watches as Raylan picks up the leg brace and then he is kneeling before Boyd Crowder, down on one knee and presenting the hunk of silicone and neoprene like a dog with a bird in its teeth. </p><p>His mouth goes dry.</p><p>Boyd wets his lips and allows Raylan to take him by the calf. He is unusually gentle as he handles Boyd’s wounded leg, carefully strapping the brace and locking it so that his knee cannot bend.</p><p>No one has ever approached Boyd with such care - with such <em> love.  </em></p><p>It causes Boyd to ache. </p><p>Both of their lives have not leant them to clemency. He wonders if Raylan’s marriage taught him this softness, this altruism, or if he came upon it honestly with age. He figures that it does not matter. Raylan is here now as the way he is and Boyd is grateful for it.</p><p>“There,” Raylan says once he’s finished tightening the straps around Boyd’s thigh and calf. “Not too tight?”</p><p>Boyd shakes his head.</p><p>“Too loose?”</p><p>“You remember how I take my coffee,” Boyd says. Raylan looks at him with soft eyes and then sits across from him, takes up the second chair at the pathetic little table that came default in this room.</p><p>“I took a swing,” he says with a shrug. </p><p>“Homerun, Givens.”</p><p>Picking up his own coffee, Raylan hides his smile behind the paper cup. He has popped the lid off like Boyd remembers he used to do. They used to grab coffee together, either before or after their shift at the mine. Raylan would always take the lid off and then curse up a storm when Boyd would hit a bump or break too quickly and he would slosh his disgustingly sweet coffee all over his fingers.</p><p>“Are you hungry?” Raylan asks.</p><p>Boyd isn’t. He isn’t hungry very often these days. He finds he lacks appetite as of recent, but he knows he should eat and he is sure that Raylan must be hungry. </p><p>“I could eat.” Boyd sips at his coffee. “Know any good places in this fine city of yours?”</p><p>“A few,” Raylan says easily. “I’d hardly call it mine.”</p><p>“No Miami.”</p><p>“No. Not close at all.”</p><p>Again, Boyd finds his thoughts drifting to that day dream he carries with him of Raylan in that horrid Hawaiian shirt. He wonders if Raylan ever wore one at all, if he even owned one. He wonders if his wife would have liked it. He thinks she must have. Boyd knows that he would like Raylan in any shirt no matter how tacky and outdated the trend. </p><p>“Kentucky is sorely lacking in good beaches,” Boyd acquiesces.</p><p>Raylan grabs both his and Boyd’s jackets. Like a gentleman, he had hung Boyd’s jacket on the hook beside the closet last night; his black denim hanging just beside Raylan’s lighter wash. Something about the sight of it causes Boyd to feel an emotion that he is unfamiliar with. He stands, balancing against the table, and slides his arms into his sleeves as Raylan holds it for him. </p><p>Raylan hands Boyd his crutch and then he is buttoning Boyd’s jacket for him. Boyd allows him without complaint, watches as his fingers work every button into their closure. He fixes Boyd’s collar and then his scarf without comment. </p><p>They take Raylan’s car into the city. Boyd has never been on this side of town and it feels to him like being in a new world, it amazes him that all of this has always been so close. Raylan turns the radio on, playing some local alternative station. Boyd is glad for it, he doesn’t think he could stand listening to anything with a string band at the moment. </p><p>He watches the trees as they pass by, the leaves turning orange and brown. They drive past a field of horses. Soon, they are passing through a residential neighborhood and then emerging, through rows of trees, into the middle of this town that feels so foreign to Boyd. They cruise past the courthouse and then they’re parking just down the street.</p><p>Raylan opens the door for him and grabs his crutch from the back seat. They walk into the small diner that Raylan has taken him to, holds the door for him, and then they’re sitting together and Raylan has ordered them more coffee. A pot is dropped off at their table and, again, Raylan orders for them both.</p><p>They don’t attempt conversation, content to simply sit in their booth in each other’s company. Boyd’s leg is outstretched beneath the table and every so often he will feel Raylan’s foot knock against his. </p><p>Raylan eats and watches Boyd as he pushes his eggs around his plate. He eats some, but the grease of the bacon and the butter on the bread make his stomach turn. </p><p>“We should go to Cumberland,” Raylan says with no preamble. </p><p>“Sorry?” Boyd sets his coffee cup down with more force than intended.</p><p>“You said Kentucky lacked a good beach,” Raylan explained.</p><p>Lacking all control of the expression on his face, Boyd asks, “And that’s your solution? Cumberland? I would hardly call that buoyed off square in their marina a beach.” </p><p>Lake Cumberland was a site unseen for Boyd for years now. In high school, everyone knew someone who’s family had enough income to afford a lot for their trailer at the lake. Raylan had a teammate from baseball that threw parties every summer at his family’s aging cabin. He would drag Boyd along whenever he was able to get away from his daddy and Bowman. They would spend a weekend drinking themselves stupid and lounging on floaties. </p><p>Undeterred, Raylan shrugs. He shoves a forkful of hash brown in his mouth and chases it with a mouthful of coffee. “It’s water.”</p><p>“Fantastic, Givens.” Boyd shakes his head.</p><p>“Yes or no?”</p><p>“What am I wagering on?”</p><p>“Cumberland!” Raylan laughs. “Would you go with me? I mean, it’s too cold this time of year.” He shrugs.</p><p>The sincerity of the question unbalances Boyd. It strikes the amusement out of his expression and tone. “You’re being serious?”</p><p>Without hesitation, Raylan says, “Yes. I’m serious.”</p><p>Boyd looks him in the eyes, searching for something he doesn't even understand. In a voice he scarcely recognizes, he says, “Alright.”</p><p>Any uncertainty in Boyd takes a backseat as Raylan’s entire face lights up.</p><p>Raylan pays their tab and flirts with their waitress.</p><p>“I’d like to go for a walk,” Boyd says as the two of them have finished their breakfast. Boyd ate too little and drank too much coffee but Raylan kept any comments on the subject blessedly internalized.</p><p>“Alright. We can- there’s a park, I think, just a block.” He points just a little towards the west. </p><p>Together, they make their way down the sidewalk until Boyd sees a green patch. What should take no more than five minutes takes them some time longer. Raylan keeps his strides slow as to not outpace Boyd’s pathetic hobble. He loathes the crutch but Raylan never complains. </p><p>The park is nice, the trees spirited shades of orange, and the fresh air is good to him. He takes a heavy seat on a bench and stretches his leg out. His gaze avoids Raylan, favoring whatever little commemorative statue it is that proudly stands in front of them. They’re too far for Boyd to read the plaque.</p><p>“You alright?”</p><p>“Finally getting Harlan out of my lungs,” he says. Raylan looks at him and smiles. Boyd takes and releases a deep breath just to prove that he can. “Better late then never.”</p><p>Standing in front of Boyd, hands in his jacket pockets, Raylan just grins. “How does it feel? Cutting that tether.”</p><p>“I couldn’t rightly tell you just yet,” Boyd says. “I believe it’s all too new at the moment. I hardly feel like more than a foal trying to find its footing.”</p><p>Raylan nods.</p><p>“You’d be willing to take that time off work?” Boyd asks.</p><p>“Hm?”</p><p>“To take me to the lake?”</p><p>He shrugs. “I have time saved up. I haven’t taken a vacation in years.”</p><p>“I suppose it’s your reasoning that escapes me.”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“You say you ain’t taken time off in years yet you want to do so now with me.”</p><p>“Think of it as being for the both of us if it relieves you of the responsibility,” Raylan says. His cheeks flush a pleasant shade of pink, clear up to his ears. It’s a cold day. “I don’t know, Boyd. Do you want to go?”</p><p><em> More than anything, </em>Boyd thinks. Lounging around listening to the water lap against the dock sounds absolutely marvelous to Boyd. The matter which troubles him is the realism of it all. Will Raylan really still be around come summer?</p><p>He swallows past a lump that has lodged itself in his throat. “Yes,” he says. “It sounds very nice, Raylan.”</p><p>“Alright then,” Raylan says, pleased. He smiles brightly at Boyd.</p><p>Looking at Raylan causes Boyd to feel like his eyes are going to burn out of his skull. The boy is always seeming, to Boyd, close to explosive with the amount of sunlight he carries within himself. He doesn't know how Raylan can stand it. Boyd isn’t a poet - has always been better with prose than poetry - but Raylan causes him to wish that he knew how to write sonnets. Or that he was decent at all at rhyming.</p><p>It is so inconceivably tender that Boyd hardly recognizes the desire as his own.</p><p>For so long, Raylan existed in Boyd’s world as no more than a flickering image on a film reel. Destined to play unceasingly and uninterrupted. </p><p>Having him in the flesh, no more than a foot away from Boyd - close enough he could reach out and touch him - was dizzying.</p><p>Boyd looks away from him and sees the multistorey structure of the city library across the street. He runs his fingers over his knuckles, absentmindedly rubbing at the ugly stick and poke lettering. Boyd looks at his hands and half expects to see a gold thread wrapped around his forefinger with its end twisted about Raylan’s.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Living out of Raylan’s motel room leaves very little personal space for either of them. They are both far too close physically, with too little boundaries between them. Boyd doesn’t think much of it at first. Two days into the arrangement, Raylan notices that Boyd is dressed in his flannel. That same day, Boyd realizes that Raylan is wearing one of his t-shirts. Neither comments on these separate yet related phenomena. </p><p>On the third day of this peculiar living situation, Raylan doesn’t come back at night. Boyd tries not to think anything of it. Raylan’s job could drag him half way across Kentucky and over state lines with very little warning and Boyd is not, all things considered, owed a phone call.</p><p>Boyd figures he shouldn’t worry so much about Raylan. They have both been on their own for some time and Raylan is good at his job, or so Boyd is left to assume. Neither of them are accustomed to <em> checking in; </em>being accountable to another.</p><p>It’s day four and Boyd spent the night alone in Raylan’s small motel room. He didn’t care for it, the being alone - not when he was just getting used to the idea of having someone around. Of having the weight and warmth of a body beside him in bed. The comfort of two people sharing a space. He didn’t sleep well. He tried waiting up, sitting on the bed with a book of Raylan’s open in front of him, reading but not absorbing the words. </p><p>The sound of the AC unit kicking on wakes Boyd early in the morning. He blinks up at the ceiling with an ache in his neck and laying on top the covers. He listens to the sounds of highway traffic for several minutes before he’s clamoring across the room to take his painkillers, forcefully shut the AC off, shower quickly, and dress in a clean flannel of Raylan’s. </p><p>Boyd is an irascible man with a waspish tongue. Because of this, his worry over Raylan gets all mixed up inside of him and mutilated until it’s relayed into a rage that he is hopeless to combat.</p><p>The anger leaves Boyd feeling drained. By the time that Raylan stumbles back into the room late in the day, all the anger has left him and he simply closes his book and meets Raylan in the middle.  </p><p>“Hey, Boyd.”</p><p>“I’d ask what hell you’ve been dragged through but that conversation can wait. You look terrible.”</p><p>Raylan’s lip twitches and he huffs a small laugh. He removes his hat and he takes a seat on the bed, releases a stiff, exhausted groan. He glides a hand over the book Boyd had set aside. “Reading scripture?”</p><p>“Asking forgiveness from our Heavenly Father,” Boyd says and takes a seat beside him, the mattress dipping under their weight.</p><p>”I already have one pain in the ass father, never understood the desire for another one,” he mutters mostly to himself.</p><p>“Honestly, Raylan, are you alright?” He reaches towards him, his fingers ghosting over the bright, sunburnt skin across Raylan’s cheeks. His touch is feather light. His face will peel if he doesn’t do something about it soon. “It’s a wonder you ever survived the Florida sun.”</p><p>Raylan smiles and then he is taking Boyd by the wrist, guiding his hand away from his face. He twists his grip until his hand is gripping Boyd’s and then his fingers are twisting between Boyd’s slimmer ones. He squeezes Boyd’s hand and Boyd squeezes back. His palms are blistered and dry, his eyes are tired, and he smells like sweat. </p><p>They don’t talk, they don’t say anything at all. They stay that way for several minutes, companionably silent.</p><p>Minutes pass and Raylan has begun to lean his weight into Boyd’s shoulder. Boyd half thinks Raylan has fallen asleep but then he clears his throat and he’s releasing his grip on Boyd and standing. “I’m gonna rinse off.”</p><p>“Alright, Raylan.”</p><p>When he’s done in the shower, Boyd is sitting outside under the overhang nursing a beer and bundled in his coat.</p><p>“Are you okay to be drinking?” he asks, alluding to the pain killers. He accepts the beer as Boyd offers it, giving a nod of thanks.</p><p>It has grown dark but it is somewhat peaceful this far from town. They are just off the interstate and traffic is sometimes loud but Boyd is already acclimating to the sound pollution. </p><p>Boyd waits for Raylan to take a seat beside him but he never does. Without his hat, without his lawman jacket and his holster on his hip, he looks so unbearably young. Looking closer, he appears, to Boyd, shaken in a way that Boyd is not entirely unfamiliar with. It reminds him of the mines. Raylan was never scared of anything the way he was afraid of those mines. Not even Arlo. </p><p>The thought sits like river rocks in the pit of Boyd’s belly.</p><p>They stay that way, listening to the cars. A semi passes by, loud and ear-piercing, causing Boyd to wince.</p><p>“I was in Nicaragua a while back.” His voice so soft that Boyd hardly realizes he’s spoken. “Looking for this money launderer named Roland Pike, the cartel’s gun thung, Tommy Bucks, looking for him too. Bucks got me, took my gun, put me in a car with some other man, drove us to some old coconut plantation.” He sounds utterly wrecked with every word he divulges. He blinks in quick succession and Boyd almost thinks his eyes are wet but it’s too dark to be certain. </p><p>“Then he tied the man to a palm tree and asked me where Roland was. I told him what I knew. No sense in lying. And I guess he wasn’t certain he could believe me, needed to be sure, or he just wanted to impress upon me how serious he was, but I watched as Tommy Bucks stuck a stick of dynamite in that poor man’s mouth, taped it so he couldn’t spit it out, lit the fuse.</p><p>“Next time I saw Tommy Bucks in Miami, I told him he’s got twenty-four hours to get out of town or I’m gonna kill him.”</p><p>“You did what needed done, Raylan.”</p><p>“God’s work?” he asks sardonically, echoing Boyd’s words from not very long ago. “He pulled first, so I was justified. What troubles me is… what if he hadn’t? What if he’d just sat there and let the clock run out? Would I have killed him anyway?” He takes a large sip of his beer and when he speaks again it’s with more steel. “I know I wanted to. I guess I just never thought of myself as an angry man.”</p><p>Boyd sets his drink down and carefully pushes himself out of his chair. He comes to stand beside Raylan, a solid presence taking sentry beside him. “Raylan.” Stealing himself, he reaches out and takes his hand. “As much I appreciate you sharing this with me, what brought this on?”</p><p>“Roland Pike,” he says. “They spotted him in California, working as a dentist. Rachel and I flew out, ended up chasing the bastard clear to the border. He’d paid a coyote to smuggle him and his girlfriend into Mexico.” Raylan swipes a hand across his face, blinking back tears that he refuses to let fall. He’d been so swept up in it, so floored over any connection to Bucks, he’d completely forgotten to tell Boyd he wouldn’t be home. “The whole case, everything with Tommy Bucks. Seeing Roland. I felt…” </p><p>“You blame him for what happened to you and that man.”</p><p>“I blame Tommy Bucks,” Raylan says, his voice hard. He scrapes a hand across his face and through his hair, releasing a shuddering breath. “Fuck. It’s… it’s difficult to explain.”</p><p>“You don’t have to explain,” Boyd tells him. He understands. There is plenty of shit that Boyd hasn’t spoken. “You just take your time.”</p><p>Wordlessly, Raylan acquiesces with a tired nod. </p><p>Looking at Raylan now, Boyd studies the silhouette he cuts against the dim lighting. He thinks it an injustice, that he has been asked by this world to protect it when by all accounts this beautiful boy deserves nothing more than to be sheltered from it. From all of it. From the hard justice he’s served with his own hands and all the bad Boyd has done as well.</p><p>It’s not Raylan’s way though, Boyd knows that. He was born into this world fully exposed to all the dark realities it could offer. He knows that even when it is bloody and leaves him shaking apart, this life and this place - this motel room, the bottles of liquor, the dried blood under his fingernails - is what he was built for; it suits him. </p><p>“I’m glad that you’re here,” Raylan admits softly. The words carry more meaning then he maybe intends them to.</p><p>Boyd squeezes Raylan’s hand and he tries not to think about the accident, a term that is being applied to the incident very loosely, nor the men he left behind in that church he never wants to lay eyes on again. He tries not to think about all the bad he has done. It feels like a lifetime ago. </p><p>He feels like he has been exactly here, on this porch in the cool Kentucky air, the two of them illuminated by cheap can lights, with Raylan Givens all his life. </p><p>“I’m glad I’m here too.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>please let me know your thoughts! I'm having a lot of fun writing this &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Marshals office is on the third floor of the district courthouse. Boyd knows this because of the directory mounted to the wall beside the elevator. It’s started to rain and Boyd moves quickly from the bus stop to the front doors of the courthouse. He’s still shaking water off his jacket and out of his hair when pump heels come clicking towards him on the tile floor. He looks and quickly avoids the eyes of the pretty court reporter he thinks he recognizes.</p><p>She stops beside him, just a few paces away, and Boyd can smell her perfume. His eyes drift down the slip of paper that she holds in a tight grip, her fingers clenching like a soldier at attention. The elevator arrives and after allowing her to board first she asks, “What floor?”</p><p>“Quite coincidentally, ma’am, the same as you.”</p><p>There’s a pinch between her brows and a stiffness to her posture. Despite this, she manages a polite smile. Then says, “I’m sorry, but do I know you? You look really familiar.” She draws out her <em> really </em>in such a way that engenders her local roots.</p><p>“Ah.” Boyd plasters on a kind enough smile. “I believe you were present for my trial some short time ago,” he tells her.</p><p>“Oh. I- that’s right. I remember now.”</p><p>Boyd knows he’s made her uncomfortable and wonders when he became such a terrible conversationalist. </p><p>“I don’t usually run into the people I see in court,” she explains in a rush. “Or speak to them at all actually.”</p><p>“I imagine the majority of folk that find themselves on trial aren’t the sort you’d appreciate running into otherwise,” he drawls. “Or be alone with in an elevator. It wasn’t a murder trial, if that alleviates any of your discomfort, Miss…?”</p><p>“Winona,” she says before biting her lip like she regrets giving her name to a potentially dangerous man. Just as the elevator arrives, she says, “I do remember now.”</p><p>Boyd dips his chin, unsure if that’s for better or worse. “Miss Hawkins. After you,” he says as the doors slide open<em>. </em>He comes up short as he watches her enter ahead of him. Curious, he hangs back as she walks with purposeful strides and arrives right at Raylan’s desk. </p><p>There’s a question on Raylan’s face when he spots her but it doesn’t deeter her. He watches them speak through the glass. From her posture it is something important to her. Her hands rest on her hips and she swats a loose strand of her tightly curled hair out of her face. </p><p>So Boyd lets them finish in privacy. </p><p>As she turns to leave, her hand lingers on Rayaln’s arm. It’s a familiar and intimate gesture and it makes something inside of Boyd go all prickly. So he looks away. </p><p>When she leaves the Marshals office Boyd catches her eye and she stops short. She smiles at him knowingly, like there’s some cosmic joke that’s just played out that he’s not in on, and not surprised.</p><p>“Let me guess, you’re here for Raylan?”</p><p>He returns her smile, going for friendly. But it feels somewhat forced. “I am.” His leg aches and he curses himself for forgoing the crutches he knows he still needs. “Any chance you’ll kindly satiate my curiosity as to what business Raylan might have with such a beautiful woman, so far out of his league?”</p><p>“You’re not some C.I. or something that Raylan’s supposed to meet with?” she asks. “It wasn’t a murder trial, but-”</p><p>He laughs, surprising himself with how funny the idea is to him. “No, I’m not Raylan’s C.I.,” he says. “I’m just a friend he’s allowed into his home while I get back on my feet, so to speak.”</p><p>“I’ve never known Raylan to have many friends,” she says, crossing her arms and her head tilting. “Unless they’re other LEOs he knows from work.”</p><p>It doesn’t surprise Boyd, the idea that Raylan doesn’t get personal enough with anyone to declare them <em> friends. </em>It’s sad, really, but not surprising. He keeps people at arm’s length. He thinks the both of them do their fair share of that. </p><p>“How’d you say you knew each other?”</p><p>“Quid pro quo, Miss Winona,” he says. “You haven’t answered my question.”</p><p>Her smile widens but grows guarded. “I’m Raylan’s ex-wife.”</p><p>Boyd feels his eyes grow wide and big, His smile widening. He opens his mouth to speak but is swiftly interrupted.</p><p>“Boyd?”</p><p>Raylan is looking between the two of them with confusion. He steps into the hall, pushing his hands into his jeans pockets with a practiced ease that only reveals slight discomfort. </p><p>“What are you doing here?” he asks. His eyes swing over towards Winona, his expression one of rising panic. “Ah…”</p><p>“I was just getting acquainted with your new roommate?” she says.</p><p>“It’s more of a suicide watch,” Boyd says.</p><p>The callous declaration causes Raylan’s expression to fall and he shoots Boyd a dark look. He ignores Winona’s quiet shock. “Boyd is a friend, Winona,” he says. By way of further explanation, he says, “From Harlan.”</p><p>Boyd can only imagine what a man like Raylan might have said to his ex-wife about his growing up and doing such a thing in Harlan. Whatever he has told her that explanation seems to be enough for her. </p><p>Winona presses her lips together and gives Boyd and Raylan each an assessing look before she says: “Right. Well I really need to be going. It was nice meeting you. I’ll let you boys enjoy your evening. Raylan.”</p><p>“Winona.” Raylan waits till the elevator has closed and gone before looking Boyd in the eye. He removes his hat and combs a hand through his hair. “So you’ve met Winona.”</p><p>“She was the court reporter, Raylan, during my trial. Your ex-wife knows you’re bunking with a man who got high and caused a traffic pile-up.” </p><p>Raylan rolls his eyes. “Boyd.”</p><p>“I mean, Good Lord, Raylan. How in God’s name did you pull that off anyway?”</p><p>
  <em> “Boyd.” </em>
</p><p>“Where’d you even meet a woman like that?”</p><p>“Utah.”</p><p>“No shit? No wonder you ran out of Harlan so fast. I’d’ve known at nineteen they’re hiding jewels like that out west I wouldn’t’a come back either.”</p><p>With forced patience, Raylan puts his hat back on and wets his lips. Crossing his arms, he levels Boyd with a hard look. “Is there any particular reason you’re being an asshole? Or did you just wake up this morning and think <em> jee, I sure can’t wait to be a dick today? </em>”</p><p>“I couldn’t entirely say, Raylan. I’m in a good mood, all things considered, maybe the asshole-ish-ness you’re detecting is simply you projecting.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Raylan drawls, losing interest in the argument.</p><p>“Do you wanna go out tonight?”</p><p>“Sorry?”</p><p>“If you’re not hungry your liquor stash is growin’ mighty thin. Was not intended for two men with our dual proclivities for the Devil’s water, I imagine,” he drawls. He looks at Raylan imploringly, his eyes gone soft. All the bite he held zapped right out of him. Cruelty came easy to him, he knew little else. In truth, Boyd needs the company and the change of scenery. </p><p>Raylan looks at him and reads between the lines. Reads him the way he’s always been able to. It’s not been a week that Boyd has been staying in Raylan’s space, and he doesn’t regret the decision, but he’s not a man that enjoys confinement. He needs to stretch his legs, even if one is less than capable.</p><p>“Alright,” Raylan says with an easy shrug. “Let me grab my coat.”</p><p>Feeling unsure of his place, Boyd follows Raylan rather than linger like a vagrant in the hallway. He trails after him and loiters by his desk, his arms folded across his chest. His eyes sweep the office briskly and perceptively. </p><p>Raylan gathers his jacket and quickly organizes his mess. His boots are caked in mud that was not there this morning and Boyd wonders where his afternoon has taken him. He wonders if it was Harlan or someplace else.</p><p>“Let me talk to Art first, then we can head out.”</p><p>“Alright.” Boyd nods and gestures for him to hop to it. He ignores the curious glances Raylan’s coworkers aim his way and wonders how many of them know him by name and reputation. It makes his skin itch. He plays it cool and leans against Raylan’s desk until he’s practically sitting on it, his feet crossing at his ankles. </p><p>“Where did you serve?”<br/>Boyd glances at the young deputy beside him -- looking like hardly more than a college graduate.</p><p>“Kuwait,” he says. “But I’m sure you already knew that, Deputy.”</p><p>The kid shrugs. “I’m new.”</p><p>Boyd hums, gearing up.</p><p>“That doesn’t mean I’m gullible, Crowder.”</p><p>The wind gets blown out of Boyd’s sails and just like that he’s bored again; disinterested in teasing the deputy. He hasn’t been feeling much like himself lately and today isn’t any exception. He’s carried a foul feeling, bunched up behind his ribcage, since he woke up. He thinks he’s having a down day. He wonders if he should tell Raylan how horrid he feels. </p><p>Whatever Raylan is saying to his boss, it leaves a hard frown of confusion and exasperation on the older man’s face. Unswayed by disapproval his whole life, Raylan soldiers on, leaving his boss’s office with a bright smile on his lips. He’s practically skipping. </p><p>He tips his hat at Boyd and asks, “You ready?”</p><p>Mindful of his gimp knee, Boyd pushes himself off Raylan’s desk. “You leave me in that motel room all day with no means of entertainment.” He says this as though he hadn’t slept till noon. “Makes me feel like the damn dog you bought just ‘cos you was lonely.”</p><p>Raylan laughs and it draws a few eyes. “Shut up.” </p><p>He twirls his keys around on his index finger and holds the door for Boyd. Raylan doesn’t say bye to any of his coworkers and Boyd wonders if he considers any of them his friends. He thinks about what Winona said.</p><p>
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</p><p>They stay later than Boyd thought they would. They eat, both ordering burgers that are oozing in grease and dripping condiments, served in wire baskets. The patrons are loud but not so loud as the live band. They play something familiar with bluegrass roots. Boyd doesn’t recognize the band but he likes the singer’s drawl and Raylan is tapping his foot under the hightop.</p><p>“You like this place?” Raylan asks him over the music. He leans in real close so Boyd can hear him, his elbow knocking against Boyd’s.</p><p>He can smell Raylan’s cologne and the Sam Adams on his breath. “It certainly possesses it’s charms,” he says vaguely. He doesn’t know why he has such a difficult time just saying <em> yes, </em>he does in fact occasionally like things.</p><p>Raylan just grins, knowing Boyd and all the things he means in the words he doesn’t say. “Band’s good.”</p><p>Boyd concedes with a nod and sips at his beer. They remind him of what he and Raylan would sometimes listen to when they were young.</p><p>“This was a good idea,” he tells him.</p><p>Looking at Raylan, his hair mused from his hat and his tie slipped off, the top few buttons of his shirt undone, Boyd can’t help but agree. He does a little self-congratulating in his own head. “I’m glad you agreed to it.”</p><p>The distance between them feels non-existent and when he looks at Raylan he seems insurmountably close. He turns his head so he can talk right into Boyd’s ear. His breath ghosting over Boyd’s skin. Over the noise of the bar, he says to him, “Glad you’re here.”</p><p>Boyd feels the sentiment of the words seep right into his bones. They carve out a space inside of him; make a home there. He wishes he knew how to reciprocate. He wishes his vocabulary hadn’t become so reduced to biting remarks and cruel disregards.</p><p>When they leave, Raylan is loose limbed from the few drinks he’s had, but sturdy as he takes Boyd by the arm. Raylan doesn’t seem like one to drink till his tongue becomes loosened these days, to Boyd’s disappointment. He remembers the two of them drinking the night away in their youth, Raylan’s tongue becoming inflated with all the clumsy words he couldn’t get out fast enough.</p><p>Tonight he grows reserved with his words but generous with his smiles. He touches Boyd more. He reaches out to touch Boyd’s arm when he orders the two of them another round of drinks. His hand lingers on the small of Boyd’s back as they walk to the car. He takes him by the hand as he helps him out of the car and into their room. Boyd tries not to think about it too much; tries not to get hung up on it. </p><p>He has a good time. Enough of one to forget that he was having a horrible day before hand.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>After Raylan’s trek south of the border, Boyd finds he’s a little paranoid and maybe, god forbid, a little bit attached. Dependent might be more accurate a term in all honesty. It is late in the day, past the time Raylan typically returns, and Boyd doesn’t think he can stand it if Raylan doesn’t come home tonight; doesn’t think he can stomach being alone tonight. So despite himself, Boyd calls a taxi.</p><p>The courthouse is decorated with cheap decorations - turkeys and cut-outs of leaves in Autumn colors. Boyd had nearly forgotten the season; forgotten that the world is still spinning and would keep on doing so with or without him. Holidays come and go whether you remember them or not and it seems Thanksgiving is around the corner. </p><p>A frown is quick to overtake his expression when he sees that the Marshal’s office is near empty. His entry grabs the attention of the remaining occupants. </p><p>“Can I help you?”</p><p>It’s the young deputy Boyd met the other day, looking at him expressionlessly. </p><p>“I’m looking for Raylan,” he says.</p><p>The deputy gestures lazily and broadly to the desk beside his own, leaned back precariously in his chair and chewing on an orange slice. “He ain’t here,” he drawls. “As you can see.”</p><p>“Would you happen to know where he’s gotten to?” Boyd asks with forced patience. </p><p>The deputy shrugs and chews his fruit. “Might have.”</p><p>Boyd gave him an expectant look. “And could you be persuaded to share this knowledge, Deputy…?”</p><p>“Gutterson,” he says around a full mouth.</p><p>“Deputy Gutterson.”</p><p>“Depends,” he says languidly. “Who’s he to you and what do you want with him? How do I know you aren’t out to kill him?”</p><p>“If I wanted him dead why would I come to his <em> office?” </em></p><p>Again, the deputy (irritatingly) shrugs. “Could just be bad at your whole criminal schtick. How should I know?”</p><p>“If I was, would you know so much about me?”</p><p>“Hey, I only know what I know ‘cus your sister-in-law plugged your brother full of buckshot,” he says easily. “I ain’t assigned to your case.”</p><p>Boyd taps a finger on Raylan’s desk. He notes the way Deputy Gutterson’s eyes track the movement, observing the ink. He finds it funny, the way this man is likely pissed over his lack of understanding about what’s between he and Raylan. “I can assure you, Deputy, that I intend Raylan no harm.”</p><p>“Either way, he ain’t here. He left about an hour an’a half ago,” he says. “Didn’t say where he was headed and I didn’t ask.”</p><p>Boyd fights back a sigh and his fingers twitch against the urge to scratch an itch under his leg brace. “You wouldn’t have a phone on you by chance, Deputy? One that I could borrow.”</p><p>“There’s a pay phone in the lobby.”</p><p>“In that case, a quarter I may borrow.” All he has on him is a debit card and a useless driver’s license. </p><p>Deputy Gutterson gives Boyd an assessing look. Out of sheer curiosity, Boyd imagines, the deputy pulls his cell from his pocket and hands it over.</p><p>Boyd scrolls through his contacts until he finds Raylan’s name.</p><p>Raylan picks up on the fourth ring. “Tim! What’s going on? If it’s work, I ain’t coming back in tonight. Take Rachel-”</p><p>“Where the hell are you?”</p><p><em> “Boyd?” </em>There’s a slur in his voice. “How did you get-”</p><p>“Where <em> are </em>you, Raylan Givens?” he asks, annunciating every word with slow precision. </p><p>“Uh.” Boyd can hear the crowd in the background. The noise is muffled but there’s definitely music playing and the place sounds crowded. “That bar by that bakery we went to t’other day?”</p><p>Rolling his eyes, Boyd says, “Stay put.” As an afterthought he tells him, “And give the bartender your keys, asshole.” He ends the call before Raylan can get another word in.</p><p>Deputy Gutterson is looking at Boyd with twin raised brows and his palm out. Boyd slaps the cell into his hand and grinds his teeth hard enough his molars ache.</p><p>“I need a ride,” he says rather than asks.</p><p>“I’m sorry?” The kid finally sits up straight, if only to level Boyd a bewildered stare. “Who the hell are you, man?”</p><p>“I’m fairly certain everyone in this office knows who I am, Deputy Gutterson. I believe you and I already addressed this issue.”</p><p>“What do you want with Raylan then?” he asks.</p><p>“At the moment, I want to pick Raylan Givens’ drunk self up from the shitty honky-tonk he’s crawled his way into before he drinks himself stupid.” Then amends, “More stupid.”</p><p>“You’re worried about him?”</p><p>Boyd thinks, <em> Yes! Of fucking course I’m worried! I’m hopelessly in love with the fool. </em>What he says is, “I want to see him home safe.”</p><p>Deputy Gutterson seems to consider his options and Boyd isn’t too terribly hopeful. He drums his fingers on his desk before slapping his palm down on the surface and making up his mind. He says, “I’m done here anyway.”</p><p>
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</p><p>The limp in Boyd’s step is becomming more and more prominent by the time he’s climbing out of Gutterson’s SUV. He grits his teeth through the pain and keeps his chin held high.</p><p>“Raylan come here a lot?”</p><p>“I wouldn’t know,” Boy says.</p><p>“So where’s all this heartfelt concern for his well being coming from? Since you hardly know him or whatever.” His eyes scan the bar through the windshield. </p><p>Neon bar signs shine blue and yellow against the raindrops on the glass. There’s a row of bikes lined up along the sidewalk. It’s a total hole in the wall and Boyd isn’t surprised in the slightest that Raylan felt it calling his name.</p><p>“Those were not my words, deputy,” Boyd says. “I’ve known Raylan all his life. I was born worrying about his well being. My more immediate concerns, however, lie with a dead man named Tommy Bucks.”</p><p>“What do you know about Bucks?” he asks pointedly.</p><p>Boyd doesn’t reply.</p><p>The bar isn’t too crowded, it being a weeknight, and Raylan is easily spotted. What, with the hat giving him away from damn near the entryway. There’s a twangy country song that Boyd doesn’t know playing over the speakers. </p><p>Feeling Gutterson at his back, Boyd marches across the bar with as much dignity as he can muster, refusing to let his limp slow him down, to where he’s spotted the familiar pale Stetson. There’s a glass of bourbon in front of him, ice melting and sweating into the wood grain bartop. When he sees Boyd he grins at him and nearly topples off his stool.</p><p>“Hey, Boyd!”</p><p>Boyd does a commendable job of keeping his own expression neutrally blank. It’s no easy feat staying stern in the face of Raylan’s drunken disposition. </p><p>Boyd is a man on a mission. In a steady voice, he says, “Evening, Raylan.”</p><p>“What’re you doin’ here?” he slurs.</p><p>“I came to drive you home,” he says. “You give this kind man your keys like I asked you to?” He gestures at the young man with light, shoulder length hair behind the bar. </p><p>“Hmm?” Raylan wrinkles his brow at Boyd, squinting at him like the lighting in the bar was too poor for his eyes. “Oh. Yeah, yeah, Kenny.” He nods his head a few times.</p><p>The man behind the bar jerks his chin at Boyd in a quick nod while he mixes a cocktail. After a promise to see Raylan home, the man -- Kenny -- hands over the car keys.</p><p>“How’d you ge’here?” Raylan asks.</p><p>“Your trusty sidekick.” Boyd gestures towards the shorter deputy where he stands sentry by the door, his arms folded over his chest and sporting a severe expression. If he were taller he might be mistaken for a bouncer.</p><p>“Tim is <em> not </em>my sidekick,” Raylan slurs with an unflattering snorted laugh.</p><p>“He wouldn’t make a very good Tonto, no,” Boyd agrees. “Although he might make a fitting Chester Goode.”</p><p>Raylan snorts. “Be nice. ‘Sides, that’d make you Miss Kitty.”</p><p>Boyd feels the apples of his cheeks heat up, his heart thudding in his chest. “I’m going to pretend I did not just hear you say that.”</p><p>Wrangling Raylan off his stool, Boyd steadies the man with a warm palm against his lower back. He guides him towards the door and towards Gutterson. The leather soles of his boots lose their footing on the wooden floor. </p><p>“You gonna need a ride back to…” He waves a hand uselessly. “Wherever he lives?”</p><p>Boyd shakes his head and shows Raylan’s keys. “I’ll take his car. I believe I’ve got the cowboy handled. Thank you, Deputy Gutterson,” he says. He speaks with a degree of gratitude that he surprises himself with.</p><p>“Yeah. Whatever. Just don’t slit his throat and you and I won’t have any problems.”</p><p>“Like I said, I’ve known Raylan since we were boys,” he says as the three of them step back out into the chilled evening air. “If I were going to kill him, I imagine I would have done it some time around the eleventh grade.”</p><p>“He was an asshole teenager then?”</p><p>“He was the very opposite.”</p><p>Gutterson gives him a strange, searching look but keeps his thoughts to himself. Boyd wonders what he sees in him. If he thinks of Boyd as some dangerous thing; some threat to his perception of Raylan. He helps Boyd guide Raylan into the passenger seat of his car. It has started sprinkling and Boyd thinks it will probably snow soon. Raylan’s hat glistens with a sheen of moisture that reflects the pale glare of the streetlights. Boyd thinks that if he unfocuses his vision it almost looks like a halo. </p><p>“You get into trouble involving this one, you give Rachel or I a call,” Gutterson is telling Raylan. “Preferably Rachel.”</p><p>The boy’s drunk enough to cling onto Gutterson’s words with glassy eyed attention. He’s tilted forward in his seat like he’s about to slip right off it. “Boyd ain’t no trouble,” he insists with intoxicated conviction. Like it’s the most honest thing he’s ever said. </p><p>Boyd snorts. “A lotta police reports would indicate otherwise but I’m not in any mood to dispute you,” he says as he climbs into the driver’s seat.</p><p>Tim slaps the roof of the car with an open palm and steps away as Boyd starts up the engine. “What he said.” He shuts Raylan’s door and Boyd watches Raylan clumsily fight a losing battle with his seat buckle. </p><p>“Thank you again, Deputy,” Boyd calls out the window. “For the ride.”</p><p>Gutterson gives a small wave and Boyd pays him no more mind as he pulls away. </p><p>The drive to the motel is short and Boyd faces his real challenge of the night in the form of getting a drunk and now sleepy Raylan into their room. The man is handsy and clingy from the amount of liquor running through his veins. Boyd tries dropping him onto the bed but Raylan holds tight to Boyd’s jacket, his fingers tangled up in the denim. He nearly drags Boyd down with him and he would have succeeded if not for Boyd reaching out to catch himself before he can faceplant his chest. </p><p>“Raylan, what-!?” He bites his lip against the ache in his leg.</p><p>There are hands on Boyd’s cheeks, both of Raylan’s warm and calloused palms framing his face. His thumb catches on the light stubble on Boyd’s jaw. </p><p>His lips are warm on the side of Boyd’s mouth and Boyd freezes, joints locking up like a statuette, as Raylan kisses him. </p><p>Boyd gapes as Raylan drops his head down on his pillow, a lazy grin on his face. Looking for all the world pleased with himself and not like he’s just shifted the axis on which Boyd’s universe turns.</p><p>There’s a pregnant pause in which neither of them speak. Boyd hardly moves, afraid he’ll shatter whatever moment they’ve found themselves in if he so much as breathes too loud.</p><p>“D’ya ever feel like…” Raylan sighs and rubs at his face. “Like you made a real mess of things?”</p><p>Boyd wets his lips. “I’ve been to prison.”</p><p>Raylan laughs, loose and loud. He starts shaking his head and rubs more harshly at his face, grinding his palms into his eyes. “What I mean to say is… like your whole life’s been outta your control and- and when you try doin’ things different you just ruin the thing that you already had? And youse no way of stoppin’ it.”</p><p>Boyd sits at the foot of the bed, eyes fixed on the door. “You know that I do.”</p><p>Raylan nods. “Suppose you would.” Searchingly, Raylan’s hand snakes out and he wraps his fingers around Boyd’s. “Missed you somethin’ awful,” he says. “Reckon I didn’t know how much until I came back. I wanted to tell you that at the hospital, when you said as much to me. But I didn’t know how to say it. I ain’t so good with words like you is.”</p><p>Boyd’s cheeks burn red. </p><p>“You was such a sorry sight,” he says. “Never thought you’d be one for- to get so worn down by life like that. That you’d do s’thing like that. Figured I’d beat you to it.”</p><p>Boyd’s frown deepens. “What’d you say?”</p><p>But Raylan keeps on talking, like a steamroller. “I’m sorry, Boyd.”</p><p>“What for?”</p><p>“I ain’t real sure what for,” he says. “A whole lot, I reckon. Sorry I left you here, I guess. And that youse feeling the way you are. I know you ain’t happy and I ain’t doing too well at making things better.”</p><p>Boyd thinks he could cry. “I don’t know, Raylan. You shouldn’t sell yourself short.”</p><p>Raylan shakes his head, rolling over onto his belly so as to smoosh his face against his comforter. “I ain’t so great,” he slurs.</p><p>“You ain’t got a clue what you are,” Boyd tells him. He’s grateful that the boy’s eyes have drifted shut, unable to catch Boyd looking so damn <em> fond.</em> He rolls his eyes.</p><p>“Don’t know much these days,” Raylan says quietly enough Boyd almost doesn’t hear. His head’s been all mixed up and confused since he watched a man be forced to swallow dynamite at a Nicaraguan plantation. Maybe even before then.</p><p>Boyd runs a hand through Raylan’s hair, sweeping it out of his face. “I figure that makes us a match set. Get some sleep now, Raylan.”</p><p>“Alright.”</p><p>Boyd helps the man shed his jacket and boots and then his jeans once he catches Raylan attempting as much on his own with clumsy fingers. With a hesitance that doesn’t become him but is growing steadily more familiar, Boyd crawls into the bed beside him, dressed in his borrowed sleep clothes.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>late late late!</p><p>I didn't forget about this, it's just been an age since I've had the time to work on it.<br/>Thank you, all, for still reading &lt;3</p>
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